I-WEST is an initiative of IICREST, the Interdisciplinary Institute for Collaboration and Research on Enterprise Systems and Technology. I-WEST aims at providing a platform to researchers from academia and industry for discussing challenges, solutions, ideas and experiences related to the broad field of enterprise systems and technology.

Each year, a special theme is chosen within this broad field, in order to make presentations and discussions more focused. The theme of I-WEST 2011 was:

Intelligent, Adaptable, and Interoperable Systems.

Current Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) are to be intelligent, adaptable, and interoperable, in order to fit adequately in broader collaborative environments: (i) EIS are to be intelligent, in order to be capable of acting autonomously; (ii) EIS are to be adaptable, in order to be capable of providing the best service in the particular context; (iii) EIS are to be interoperable, in order to be capable of collaboratng with other systemsg. This requires sometimes “externalized” IT systems and services as a potential cost-savings advantage by moving internally hosted IT services to external providers. We need to take a closer look into the main technical foundations and related challenges concerning EIS, taking into consideration also the applicability in domains of high societal relevance. The two-day I-WEST event is to bring together researchers, academics and innovators to discuss the latest EIS-related innovations intended to improve quality of life, create business opportunities, and stimulate economic growth.

Hence, the goal of I-WEST is to look at issues related to advancing collaborative enterprise technologies and applying them in new ways, to create solutions for the dynamic and networked enterprises of the future. Spontaneous collaboration, context awareness, economic sustainability, and adaptive behavior are just some desirable properties of future enterprise systems, which have to be realized in distributed, heterogeneous and dynamic environments, and for which creative solutions grounded in enterprise technologies have to be developed. I-WEST also has the intention to unite researchers from various communities, including researchers working on enterprise computing, enterprise interoperability, context-aware systems, IT infrastructures, model-driven development and service-oriented architectures.

I-WEST invites papers describing original contributions related to the topics listed above. Submitted papers should be in English, in LNCS format, no longer than 15 pages and provided as PDF files. LNCS style files are available at the Springer LNCS website (http://www.springer.com/east/home/computer/lncs) via the link Information for LNCS Authors and Volume Editors.

Publication

The I-WEST papers will be published as a printed proceedings with ISBN.

Important Dates

Please, turn to the IICREST Secretariat (secretariat[at]iicrest.org) for actual information.